


Paper Bridge

by nakedhelot



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Historical, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23441674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nakedhelot/pseuds/nakedhelot
Summary: Spring 1883, Guanshan is a supply grunt in the Nguyen Dynasty Army during the Tonkin Campaign. He meets He Tian from the Qing Dynasty.
Relationships: He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	Paper Bridge

_The hold is on fire and flooding. His mother holds tight as they’re ushered on deck. The black water and sky are indistinguishable - illuminated by dozens of junks spitting glowing orange debris like a thousand tiny fireflies. It's noisy but Guan Shan can only hear the friction of damp skin as his mother squeezes his hand, can only hear a lack of movement, as she stops and his own body lurches from the sudden tension. He is deaf to his own yell as he tried to pull her across the felled mast bridging them to a junk untouched by flames. Unmovable, her fists remain welded through his. Panic crashes as a wave of the loudest, most indistinct sound. A calloused hand grabs his, pulls him like a string - his mother the bow. Guan Shan stares at the mess of grey hair in front of him, lit red from burning sails. They drag his mother across the mast which shifts with each ripple of the river, as impatient as the rescue it’s latched on. His mother takes one sluggish step for every three of theirs. Guan Shan’s right hand melts into hers. He burrows his left further into the stranger’s fingers until their metacarpal bones grind together. They reach the other junk. Guan Shan looks to his mother, looks behind her where the mast slides into the river as they pull away. The junk they had boarded at Hekou is completely aflame, blinding red quivering on blinding black. Grey Hair shoves them into the hold, says something incomprehensible and disappears onto the deck. It’s stifling with people, supplies and the tang of metal. He carves a space out between sacks of rice and corn, and buries himself in his mother's ribs as she curves around him._

* * *

The ramshackle boats are rendered in orange-black chiaroscuro, static on pink water. The winding canal turns black as its frayed edges are trimmed into a straight line parallel smooth, hard roads and columned, stone estates. Lanterns hanging from their corners have them gleaming like bones. 

Cicadas trill louder the higher the thin-grinned moon rises. 

Guan Shan shifts the rod hanging from his shoulders, balancing the congee filled tin-bucket hanging to his right with the wooden box of tofu fa to his left. His nape and his calves burn with the usual pain and he smells as one would expect working from sun-up until the final licks of lamp oil incinerate. He doubts that the foreigners, in their multi-storied manors care, as they lower their baskets. Guan Shan pouches the money, enough to buy soap with, fills the pot with congee and returns it to the basket. 

Humidity still pervades deep in the night and he pulls at his scratchy collar to dry his forehead. Then, with as big a voice he can muster, he continues singing.

“Tofu Fa! Congee! Tofu Fa! Congee!”

When the rod over his shoulders no longer curves with weight, Guan Shan follows the unbending line of the red river until it once again becomes ragged. At this hour, hardly anything lights the way and he continues in longer bouts of total darkness. It’s only until he sees the vague, darker than dark silhouettes of awkward, skeletal boats and squat roofs that his heart slows. He strides towards the barely there, highly appreciated spots of illumination - visible as they come from open fires kindled by whatever wood was useless for anything else rather than within pretty, wrought cages. 

At the edge of the village, where bamboo and palm huts sit inconspicuously amongst their brethren trees, his steps stutter. Perched on the edge of the well, She Li lights up a rolled corn husk until the scent of tobacco steeps the mossy, damp air. 

“Hey, Guan Shan.”

* * *

_Grey Hair introduces himself as She Li as they disembark at Hanoi. The journey down the river drained all color from the stowaways who remained in the hold, but She Li glowed as though he swallowed the sun._

_“I like your hair,” he says in tinted Mandarin. He’s looking at mother but talking to Guan Shan._

_“Don’t be a stranger, okay?”_

* * *

“I heard you’re off to fight for the homeland.”

Guan Shan continues to slice scallions.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of Ma Guan Shan while you're away.”

The beat of the machete against the wooden board stays steady.

“I’m not worried,”

Angling the machete so as to not blunt the edge, Guan Shan scrapes the pile of pungent green into a large vat sitting on the floor.

“She can take care of herself.”

* * *

_Guan Shan’s little fingers fit perfectly between the grooves of carved wooden banisters. The red lanterns are dim and he is small and he’s sure he isn’t supposed to be watching his mother hiss words too long and full of vitriol for him to understand. His father’s hair is unfamiliar out-of-place, his face strange, unfriendly._

_Mother turns, her eyes catching light like flint against fire steel, whipping away from his father. Her blue shoes shine purple and fall heavy on the first step. Guan Shan runs back to his room as she looks up and meets his stare._

* * *

Loud shouting fades as Guan Shan tries to focus on the sound of rain. The water seeps through the small holes in his straw hat and form a beaded curtain around it’s round rim. He can almost hear them tinkling like glass droplets when he bends to load sacks of rice from the back of a horse-drawn cart to the train carriage. When there’s no sacks left to load, he and the other labourers pull themselves onto the train carriage and seat themselves between supplies of food and ammunition. He sits at the edge of the carriage, keeps his hat on and looks outside - away. 

The train starts moving soon after, and the muddy brown of Hanoi city slowly stumbles into the rain-fed verdant of the countryside. The air is thick with fertile moisture as it swathes over Guan Shan’s face and he feels his every breath sink deep into his lungs rendering his chest gravid. The train arrives at Gia Cuc a few days later.

**Author's Note:**

> SO this is what happens when I listen to far too many Asia history podcasts and is hit with 19 Days feels. I have tried to keep this historically relevant but I will bend facts to make writing easier haha... I've actually been sitting on this for ages but i want to at least publish what i have and hopefully i can write more of what i have planned?


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